Official publisher brands find 'unfortunate fraud' and calls in lawyers

The deepening mystery over who created an old set of glass photographic plates estimated to be worth £128million may have finally been solved.

The photography world was set abuzz after experts claimed 65 negatives from the 1920s and 1930s were the work of acclaimed U.S. nature photographer Ansel Adams.

Rick Norsigian bought the negatives at a garage sale for just £30, but when he had them valued ten years later he was told that their true worth was £128.5million.

Mr Norsigian, a painter, found the 6.5 x 8.5in glass plates at a California garage sale. When he turned them into prints, Mr Norsigian relatives suggested that they resembled Adams’s work.

Rich pickings? Painter Rick Norsigian picked up a set of 65 negatives for just £30 - only to find they were worth £128.5million

But
it took years of painstaking research before an expert said they were
sure - and a Beverly Hills gallery revealed their astronomical value.

The only fly in the ointment for Mr Norsigian is that Adams' family has cast doubt on the find.

And now relatives of a nature photographer called 'Uncle
Earl' or 'Pop Laval' have claimed he took the images.

Miriam Walton says her uncle Earl Brooks, an amateur photographer who lived in California in the 1920s - the decade experts said the
photos were taken - is behind the images.

The 87-year-old from Oakland, California, saw the photos in news reports and called in experts to study some of the snaps she owned, specifically that of Jeffrey Pine, a much-photographed tree on top of Sentinel Dome at Yosemite, California.

'I'm looking at the picture that's hanging on my wall and I knew that Ansel Adams didn't take them,' Mrs Walton said.

'I knew my Uncle Earl took them.'

After studying the images, photography expert Scott Nichols concluded it could have been taken at the same time as the negative Norsigian claims was created by Adams.

Miriam Walton claims her uncle, Earl Brooks, took the photo on the right. She believes the photo on the left was also taken on the same day by Mr Brooks and not Ansel Adams

'The shadows are almost identical,' he said.

Mr Nichols agrees that it is likely Earl Brooks and not Adams that took the photographs: 'A lot of people photographed Yosemite and did a nice job,' Nichols said. 'But when you look at an Ansel Adams, it says, "I'm Ansel Adams".'

Mr Norsigian, a painter and construction worker, bought the negatives in Fresno about 10 years ago.

He initially kept them under a pool table at his home and then in a safe deposit box at a local bank when he realised they might be valuable.

His hunch appeared to have been right and the negatives, showing black and white images of Yosemite National Park, Fisherman's Wharf and other scenes in San Francisco, were this week declared by a Beverly Hills art appraiser to be the work of Adams and worth around $200 million.

Unwanted: The prints were in a garage sale and relatives suggested they resembled the work of nature photographer Ansel Adams

The head of the Ansel Adams Gallery, Matthew Adams, who is the late photographer's grandson, is also was sceptical about the claim, and said in a statement that he was not convinced after being presented with evidence by Norsigian's team last year.

'I think it's irresponsible to claim that they're Ansel's. We think it's a very significant claim and we think it's not accurate,' he said.

Mr Turnage said he's consulting lawyers about possibly suing Norsigian for using a copyrighted name for commercial purposes.

He described Norsigian as on an 'obsessive quest'. 'We've been dealing with him for a decade,' he added. 'I can't tell you how many times he's called me.'

For years, Mr Norsigian tried to get them officially verified, taking them to experts at the Smithsonian Institution, the Getty Centre and others, but no one would venture to authenticate them.

Some find: Mr Norsigian was actually looking for an antique chair before stumbling across the negatives

Three years ago, he met Beverly Hills entertainment lawyer Peter, who assembled a team of experts to review the negatives.

Norsigian said the specialists had spent about a year authenticating the negatives and believed the compositions were taken between 1919 and the early 1930s.

Several of the negatives were charred on the edges after a fire damaged Adams' darkroom in 1937.

These negatives were previously believed among about 5,000 plates lost in that fire in which destroyed about one-third of Adams' portfolio.

Two handwriting experts also confirmed that handwriting on the envelopes in which the negatives were found belonged to Adams' wife Virginia.

But Matthew Adams said the handwriting included some spelling mistakes for commonplace names in the Yosemite National Park which would not have been made by a woman who grew up in Yosemite.

'She was an intelligent, well-read woman. I find it hard to believe she would mispell those names,' he said.

Authentic: Mr Norsigian has carefully researched Ansel Adams' work before experts revealed they were the work of the nature photographer

Reward: Rick Norsigian with one of the prints. Many of the images have never been printed before and are of scenes from the 1920s and 1930s

Peter also hired a meteorologist who studied the cloud formation, snowdrift and shadows on one image and compared it with a similar photograph by Adams, concluding they were taken at the same location on the same day.

But Matthew Adams said those evaporation clouds appear every day and the snowdrift is on mountains 20 miles away.

'I suggested carbon dating of the charring and the envelopes,' he said.

Matthew Adams also said it was unlikely his grandfather would have misplaced the negatives, especially after the devastating fire.

'Ansel was very meticulous about his negatives,' he said. 'He kept them in a bank vault in San Francisco after the fire.'

Beverly Hills art appraiser David W. Streets said he conservatively estimated the negatives' value at $200 million, based on current sales of Adams' prints and the potential for selling never-seen-before prints.

Turnage called that figure ridiculous because the value of Adams' work is in his darkroom hand-crafting of the prints, and said the negatives are next to worthless.

Sought after: Ansel Adams, 78, laughs during an interview at his home in Carmel Highlands, California, in 1980. Right, the master at work in Yosemite National Park in the 1930s

'Ansel interpreted the negative very heavily. He believed the negative was like a musical score. No two composers will interpret it the same way,' he said. 'Each print is a work of art.'

Arnold Peter told media that they were confident the negatives are authentic.

He said the value of the negatives was only part of the appeal. 'This to me is so gratifying to have a piece of history to share this with everyone and to kind of prove that well, maybe, a construction worker/painter can be right,' he added.

'But I'm just glad everything has worked out and we get to celebrate Ansel Adams' kind of rebirth.'

Norsigian is not bothered by naysayers. 'Prove me wrong,' he said. 'This has been such a long journey. I thought I'd never get to the end. It kind of proves a construction worker-painter can be right.'

The genuine article: Adams' 1934 photograph 'Thundercloud, Ellery Lake, High Sierra, California'. Experts say Adams' negatives are almost worthless since most of his creativity was down to how he produced photos in the darkroom

Genuine: This image provided by the National Parks Service shows Ansel Adams' 1942 photo of the Tetons and Snake River overlook in Grand Tetons National Park, Wyoming

He is already planning to capitalise on his discovery, setting up a website - www.lostnegatives.com - to sell prints made from the negatives from $45 for a poster to $7,500 for a darkroom print with a certificate of authenticity.

A documentary on his quest to have the negatives authenticated is in the works, as well as a touring exhibition that will debut at Fresno State University in October.

Ansel Adams is renowned for his timeless
black-and-white photographs of the American West, which were produced
with darkroom techniques that heightened shadows and contrasts to
create mood-filled landscape portraits. He died in 1984 at 82.

His photographs today are widely reproduced on calendars, posters and in coffee-table books, while his prints are coveted by collectors.

The print 'Clearing Winter Storm, Yosemite National Park' fetched $722,500 (£464,000) at auction last month in New York, a record for 20th century photography.